Nigeria schoolgirl tells House of Lords of brutal Boko Haram attack Victoria Yohanna, 15, was one of more than 400 people taken prisoner during an attack by Boko Haram in January

We heard shooting and the sound of bombs in the early hours of the morning, and at first I thought it was the Nigerian army trying to protect us," she said. "Then I realised it was Boko Haram. Those Boko Haram members whose duty is to take women and children for their caliphate took our entire family and made us walk on foot to one of their camps."

En route, she said, she saw numerous corpses of people who had been killed and beheaded by the group, with bullet cases "scattered like raindrops" everywhere. She then spent two weeks at a makeshift Boko Haram camp in the outskirts of Baga, which by then was completely in the militants' hands. "Every morning they took the hostages for training at Islamic school. They would say the Koran is the religion God had for you," she added. Victoria said she was able to fool the militants into thinking she was a Muslim by pretending to perform the "buta", a Hausa word that describes the ritual handwashing that local Muslims before prayer. There were Muslim captives among the hostages who knew she was a Christian but they chose not to tell the militants, she said.

She and the rest of her family eventually escaped one night when the fighters went out to kidnap more people. "I knew what had happened to the Chibok schoolgirls and was very scared," she added. "Were it not for God we would probably all be dead by now". Victoria has been accompanied to the UK by Father Gideon Obasogie, a priest in the city of Maiduguri, where she is now living. Victoria and Father Gideon Obasogie He said that when he had first met her, she found it impossible to relate her ordeal without breaking down in tears. "The church has been trying to organise counselling sessions for these victims of Boko Haram," he said. "Simply offering them confessional is not enough."